


blood beating black

by rhllors



Category: Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Gen, Pre-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:10:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhllors/pseuds/rhllors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snow is the apple of the King's eye.</p><p>Ravenna is prepared to pull his eyes from their sockets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blood beating black

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Deutsch available: [Pochendes, schwarzes Blut](https://archiveofourown.org/works/517870) by [Schattentaenzerin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schattentaenzerin/pseuds/Schattentaenzerin)



> You shall have a Queen! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn, treacherous as the sea, stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!

There are Old Gods in these parts. Gods of the Old Ways, of Magick and Witchcraft. Ravenna is taken there by her Mother on her flowering day. 

Her Mother strips her out of her bodice and sleeves, underdresses and the dainty shoes that are covered in a layer of mud from the walk from the road into the ravine, along the river. Ravenna's coiffed hair is pulled from its pins, falling into ringlets around her shoulders, barely brushing her breasts. She wraps her small arms around her chest, and shifts, because it is so very cold and the wind is howling, blowing her hair around her like a halo in the darkness. 

Ravenna's mother smiles, a kind smile she associates with hugs and love. She smiles back, and lies down on the altar.

Her legs are sticky with moonblood. 

Words are said, and she is _possessed_.

(her mother still smiles)

 

 

 

Her crown is silver and spiked.

 

 

 

She is taught the arts for life at Court. 

Ravenna can paint, sing, and dance. She knows how low to bow. She knows which knife, which fork, which spoon to use. She knows who to charm, who to avoid. 

She knows how to make men her plaything, how to make them do anything. She can throw knives with deadly accuracy. She knows how to slip poison into someone's drink.

Ravenna can also practice the darkest of black magicks. She can turn herself into crows.

She can peel the skin off her face and turn into someone else.

 

 

 

The King is an old fool who believes that he still runs the land he does not deserve. His ugly face is pockmarked, his body marred with old scars and his chin weak. Those around him conspire against him, who will rule when he is eventually killed. The Earls and Barons swarm like vultures around a corpse.

The Queen is beloved, and Ravenna is her Lady-in-Waiting.

Ravenna catches the King's eye-- _of course_ \--and she lies with him. She closes her eyes and thinks of the silver, spiked crown and the Queen's head on a spike.

The King is an old fool who believes that a beautiful girl loves him.

(they dare not call her _whore_ because her enemies always seem to have unfortunate accidents)

 

 

 

Snow is the apple of his eye.

Ravenna is prepared to pull his eyes from their sockets.

 

 

 

She wears black the day the Queen dies.

She comforts the King, holds his crying head into her lap. Gently strokes his hair as he mourns the mother of is daughter and the most beloved woman in the Kingdom. 

Ravenna consoles him and she remembers the betrayal that burnt in that harpy's eyes as she choked on her poisoned food.

(it is difficult to repress a smirk, but she does)

 

 

 

Ravenna marries the King. Snow holds her train, smiling sweetly at her.

As she walks slowly through the grand Cathedral, she imagines whether Snow's face would echo her Mother's face in death. 

She answers her vows with a small smile, playing the role the King expects her to be--beautiful and silent--but imagines his daughter, in all of her beauty and poise, wearing a necklace made of her own vigin blood.

As the ring slides onto her finger, she absent mindedly wonders whether Snow's Mother took her to the Ravine on her flowering day, whether she will ever know the arts as Ravenna herself does (Snow can dance, but can she peel away her skin?).

She vows to herself that Snow will never hold the power she does.

 

 

 

Her mother tells her one piece of advice before death collects her.

"It will make you old." she gasps, her throat rasping with the effort of pronunciation, "Use--the--young."

 

 

 

The day the King dies, Ravenna wears a scarlet.

He is barely cold corpse lies in his bed when sits upon his throne, her silver spiked crown placed firmly in her intricately styled hair.

She gathers the insects that call themselves The Privy Council into the Throne Room. They are bemused at her seat on the throne, one laughs.

She smiles, all teeth and no remorse, and their faces change from amusement to horror, ill-disguised terror.

"Bend knee." she says, barely a whisper that echoes through the room which has not yet been draped in black.

They do not move.

"Bend knee or I will destroy everything you have ever loved." she says, her voice slightly louder this time. Ravenna can smell their sweat and their fear, and watches on-by-one they bury their swords into the earth and bend their knees towards her.

One, however, remains defiant and simply shouts _long live Snow_. 

Her hand clenches into a fist that makes the palms of her hand bleed. Quicker than anyone of them can see, she pulls a knife and throws it into his eye. He screams in agony, and she smiles; kind in the mouth, fire in the eyes. 

"Bend. Knee."

 

 

 

She twenty five summers old and she is brutality embodied.

Ravenna crushes an uprising against her with a ruthlessness and barbarism that the Kingdom hasn't seen since The Dark Days. She is beautiful and terrible, purging those who speak ill of her.

The people ask what happened to their sweet Princess Snow, whether she has been a victim of her Step-Mother's iron fist.

The girl is too beloved to kill, but too dangerous to be free. She is a reminder of the Good Old King and his Fair Queen, she inspires hope.

Ravenna shuts Snow away in a high tower, and cuts out the tongues of those that speak of her.

 

 

 

A gray hair appears, her breasts begin to sag.

Ravenna remember her Mother's words and thinks of the Magick she had used since she arrived.

It has taken a toll, a toll that she can not afford to show.

She picks her most beautiful maidservant and bathes in her blood.

Her hair returns to the colour of spun gold, her breasts are firm once more.

 

 

 

"Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who is the fairest of them all?" Ravenna asks.

She is fourty summers old, and looks as she did when she took the throne, all those years ago. She has sucked the souls of her enemies, and they fill her pores, keeping her skin smooth and her hair soft. 

"Snow White, my queen." it replies, mocking her.

Ravenna screams, the mirror cracks into a hundred thousand pieces, scattering across her chambers.

 _I will eat her heart,_ she vows, _and the crown will never leave my head._


End file.
